


if i have to die tonight (on your lips)

by sechung



Category: PRISTIN (Band)
Genre: F/F, Horror, x post from aff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-05 01:30:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 18,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14606223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sechung/pseuds/sechung
Summary: Minkyung and Yebin chase the supernatural and find the humanity in themselves.





	1. ghost town

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this is a fic thats been updating on my aff for quite a while and i figured i should put it here also. it takes heavy inspo from the games oxenfree and night in the woods. i hope you enjoy!

The first time Yebin and Minkyung went hunting for ghosts, it had been a foggy November day in their senior year. Yebin can't remember why they'd done it, but the small town lull of Diamond City—a rather ironic name for the mountainside civilization, as they were much too small to be referred to as a city, and lacked any austere or bling that could be labelled as "diamond"—had probably driven them to boredom. 

She can remember, sneakers squishing on the wet earth and hopping over logs as the beam of Minkyung's flashlight broke through the grey mist. 

"They say that there's a grave up on this hill." Minkyung had said. "When you go up there at midnight, the ghost will appear."

"That's sort of corny." 

"Hey! Let's just see, ok!"

Yebin remembers finding the grave, buried under damp leaves, an unmarked flat slab of cement—but besides that there had been nothing else that night, except the sound of a gunshot, probably from someone hunting illegally, that sent the two of them scattering into the thick of the trees and back home.

However, the lack of ghosts discovered only seemed to ignite their curiosity more, and they soon found themselves exploring the expansive woods surrounding Diamond City even more. 

 

Minkyung stabs her fork into her slice of chocolate cake as Yebin watches. The diner, mostly empty, casts a faint and lonely neon light on the two of them.

"How was work?" Yebin asks.

"Shitty as it always is."

"Oh."

"I can't believe in a week I'm turning 20, and this is what my fucking disaster of a life has become. Working a ugly job at a convenience store, with nothing but a high school diploma to my name."

"Geez."

"Sorry, I'm in a mood." Minkyung cuts off a bite of cake. "Can we go ghost hunting tonight? I need it." 

"Of course." Yebin finds herself saying, even though she doesn't really want to, because she will always drop everything for Minkyung.

 

Diamond City is made up of small, old fashioned, charming houses. It's surrounded by thick, unkempt woods, with far away fire watch stations, a bubbling creek, and gravely roads. There's a few stores, two schools, parks, resturaunts—but it's small, tiny even, a minuscule blip on a giant map. 

Yebin hates it. 

It's painfully boring here, never visited by anyone or anything interesting, hours away from any sort of bustling city, engulfed completely by tall trees. It's impossible to escape—few kids even get out to college these days, ending up swallowed by shambled small town life. Yebin is one of them. 

She walks, slowly, to Minkyung's house as the sun sets past the distant mountains. 

"Hey!" a voice yells. 

She turns to see Eunwoo, and her brother Soonyoung, on the front steps of their house. 

"Oh, hey."

"Out to catch some ghouls?" Eunwoo jokes. 

"You could say that." 

"Are you gonna come tomorrow?"

"To your lame ass stargazing party? Think so."

"Sick."

Yebin keeps walking until she comes across one of the few apartment buildings in town, a tall orangey structure tattered by wind and rain, and presses the buzzer next to the faded name reading "Kyungwon & Minkyung". 

"Hello?" A voice, not belonging to Minkyung but, rather her tall and polite roomate, Kyungwon, says. 

"It's Yebin."

"Oh! Come right up!"

The door clicks open, and Yebin rides the rickety elevator up to the fourth floor, then traveling down a hallway to a door hung with a small wreath of flowers. She knocks, and Kyungwon opens. 

"Come in! I'm baking cookies!" 

"It's July."

"Never a bad time for cookies!" 

Kyungwon is a lean, positive-minded, gentle girl who works at the only art supply store in town. Yebin had felt a little jealous at first that she got to room with Minkyung, but Yebin also knew she was lucky to have a house and parents to live with. For Minkyung, it was different. 

That very girl currently sits on the couch, tying her boots together.

"Hey Yeb. Ready to go?" she asks.

"Yeah." Yebin replies. "I even stole a couple snack foods from work." 

"Snacks are my speciality! You work at a grocery store, you should have grabbed some sort of healthy thing. Like apples." Minkyung stands up, throws her backpack over her shoulder. "Lets do this." 

 

Ghost hunting in the different seasons always brings a multitude of various atmospheres. Yebin, personally, loves summer the most. The dusky tones of twilight as they wander between the trees, the tiny blips of fireflies—and most of all, Minkyung's eyes in the soft summer light.

The sun is just about gone, sky fading from it's orange streaked clouds from just a minute earlier. Minkyung switches on her flashlight, and Yebin follows. 

"What exactly are we looking for tonight?" she asks.

"Thought we'd go to the waterfall. They say someone drowned there."

"Are you sure that's actually true, or did you make that up?"

Minkyung lets out a laugh, and Yebin's stomach warms. "I mean, these are basically nature hikes at night. We've never found anything ghastly of any sort." Minkyung says. "But actually, Mom told me this one. Before she... you know. I loved ghost stories when I was younger."

Yebin gives her a sympathetic smile, slightly shrouded by the dark. "Hey, are you going to Eunwoo and Soonyoung's thing tomorrow night?"

"The thing you called 'nerdy space fest for losers'? Yeah I am." 

"Ok, shut up. It's a nerdy space fest for losers, doesn't mean I won't enjoy it." 

"I can't believe this town is so boring we throw parties to go stargazing for a couple of hours." Minkyung shines her flashlight up through the trees as the sound of rushing water fades in from the distance. "Almost there."

They tread up a long path and into a clearing among the trees—from a hill surrounded by rocks above, water tumbles down into a pool on the ground, which then continues into the creek. 

"Wow, I haven't been up here in forever." Yebin says. "I think my parents and I used to go here to have picnics when I was little. Different atmosphere at night." She kicks a rock, and watches it tumble into the water with a tiny splash.

Suddenly, from the top of the waterfall, a shadowy figure steps out of the darkness.

"Oh my god." whispers Yebin.

"Fuck." Minkyung says. 

"What are you guys doing out here so late at night?" the figure yells. 

Minkyung shines her flashlight upward onto a familiar face. 

"Wonwoo? I could ask you the fucking same."

"Yeah!" Yebin shouts. "We're ghost hunting! Like sensible humans!" 

Wonwoo begins to walk down the side of the hill. 

"Oh yeah, I forgot you guys were into that." 

"Why are you up here anyway?" Minkyung asks, eyebrows creased.

"I like it in the woods at night. I was watching the sunset. Think it's pretty in the summertime." 

"I can see why all the girls called you gay in high school now." 

"See," he says, "this is why we," he makes a general hand motion encompassing the three of them, "don't hang out." 

"You should join us sometime." Yebin says, hoping to thin the tension.

"Actually," Wonwoo says with a pause, "I see some weird shit around here. Shapes and noises and stuff. I even saw some creepy guy watching me from the abandoned fire watch tower up on West Hill."

"Woah." 

"And hey, I have a Polaroid camera if you want to borrow it to take creepy pictures." 

"You know, Wonwoo, you're not too bad of a guy." Minkyung says.

"I'm gonna go. Have fun ghost hunting." He quickly disappears back into the darkness and down the path they had come. 

"A Polaroid camera would be kinda sick actually." Minkyung remarks as they trek up towards the top of the waterfall. 

"I think so too." Yebin says, remembering her old, now broken, camera, with which she took somewhat streaky, but nostalgic photos of Minkyung with when they were back in high school. Scrambling up across some rocks, they sit right at the creeks edge, watching the water spill off the cliff. 

"What now?" Yebin asks, reaching into her backpack for a soda. 

"I think we just wait."

"Hey um..." Yebin takes a sip of her drink and nervously swallows, "You mentioned your mom earlier. Is everything going ok, like, uh, dealing with that? Your parents?" 

Minkyung digs a hand inside Yebin's old backpack, pulling out a bag of sour gummy worms. "It's fine. I visited their graves yesterday."

"Is that why you were in such a bad mood?" 

"Eh. I don't know. I think it's more just... being an adult in general. Sucks." 

"Yeah, I feel that." 

"You're 19! You're a baby." 

"Hey, so are you!

"But I'm almost 20." 

"Okay, old lady." 

There's a small burst of laughter in between them, echoing off into the empty sky. 

Yebin's watching the sky when she hears something—a voice, faint, indistinguishable, but still a voice, and not one she can seem to recognize. 

"Hey, do you hear that?"

"The voice?" Minkyung replies. "I think it's getting closer."

Yebin stands up. "Wonwoo! Is that you? This shit isn't funny!" 

Minkyung tugs on Yebin's arm, as a large shadow approaches up the path they had came, still indistinguishable, but still there. "Yebin..." she whispers.

Yebin grabs her bag. " _Run_." she hisses back. 

Just barely zipping up her things, she throws her backpack on, soda can falling off the edge of the cliff and into the water below. The two girls dash as fast as possible into the trees, as far away as they can get from whatever  _thing_  is approaching. There's brambles and vines and jagged logs, and it's becoming impossible to navigate and see far enough into the pitch black to move at the pace they're dashing. 

Suddenly, Minkyung trips over a log, falling forwards and on top of Yebin. The two, yelling, tumble down the side of the hill and into a patch of ferns, Yebin on her back and Minkyung on top. But that's not really the important thing, the most noticeable factor for the two is that in the confusion and entangling, it appears their lips had pressed together. 

They're kissing.

 

 

 

 


	2. cliffs edge

It’s been twenty hours since Yebin and Minkyung kissed. 

Yebin can still feel it—yes, sure, Minkyung’s mouth tasted slightly like dirt, but her lips had that scent of the cherry chapstick Yebin always sees her obsessively apply. 

It had only been a few seconds before they had pulled apart.

Nothing had happened, it meant nothing.

Yebin wasn’t going to get her hopes up over a stupid accident. 

Now, sitting on top of Eunwoo’s roof, gazing at the speckled sky, she stares at Minkyung’s profile, the other girl too entranced by conversation with Kyungwon to notice. 

Sometimes, it shocks Yebin how oblivious Minkyung is. It’s been years and years of pining, of flirting, and yet—she can’t seem to tell that Yebin is hopelessly in love with her. 

“You need anything, Yeb?”

She turns to see Soonyoung, handing her a beer can. 

“Sure. Thanks.”

“How’d ghost hunting go yesterday?”

Yebin cracked the tab of her can, as if the loud pop would drown out the embarrassing memories of tumbling down the hill.

“There was an accident.” 

“I can see.” Soonyoung chuckles, eyeing the bandage taped to Yebin’s cheek. “There’s nothing out there, you know?”

“You never know.” She sips her drink. “The nothing out there is better than the nothing in here. In town.”

“We’re not going to be stuck here in Diamond City forever, you know.”

Yebin let her eyes rise to the stars, then back to Minkyung. 

“I don’t know about that.”

 

The droning fluorescent lights of the grocery store are giving Yebin a headache. But they do that every day anyway, she’s adapted to it. 

“You good, Yebin?” Siyeon, her coworker, asks. 

“I’m fine. Just lost in thought.”

Putting a cereal box on the shelf, Yebin turns to the younger. “Hey, Siyeon, are you going to college?”

She notices how her coworker’s eyebrows crease, stress-ridden. 

“Not sure. I wish I could. My family can’t really afford it right now. My dad’s out of work.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.” 

“I can deal with it. It’s not like anyone from here ever makes it out. It’s just a given.”

Yebin’s headache throbs harder. An hour until work is over. 

An hour until Minkyung. 

 

The two of them meet in the parking lot. The wind whips at Minkyung’s long hair, and she looks almost goddess-like as the sun sets behind her, leaning against her car.

“Where are we going today?” Yebin calls across the way. 

“Deeper. Deeper into the woods, I mean.”

A chill down her spine, Yebin leans next to Minkyung. 

“Scary.”

“That’s kind of the point.” her taller counterpart replies, smirk and all, turning around to open the car door. “It’s not my fault you’re such a huge pussy.”

Yebin follows to the passenger seat, mock-gasping.

 “Hey! Don’t be mean!”

Minkyung turns the key, the engine rattling to life. 

“How was work?” 

“I dunno.” Yebin threads her fingers through her hair. “It was just... work. You know how it is. And you?”

“It was ok. Stole some candy for tonight. Roll down the window, will you?”

Yebin complies with a soft hum as the car slowly backs out of the empty parking lot and into the street. Wind rushes through the car, tossing at their hair. 

Minkyung gives a wistful smile as the car creaks up onto a gravel road, leading into the darkened woods, one of her hands on the wheel and the other reaching for a tube of cherry chapstick. 

 

The one nice thing about living so far away from everything is that the sky shines so much brighter. The woods would’ve been terrifying, but the soft twinkle of thousands of stars above give Yebin a sense of calm. 

Trees tower overhead, blocking some of the sky, and Minkyung’s flashlight beams through the darkened scenery, casting ominous shadows. 

“Where are we going this time?”

“The fire tower. The one Wonwoo was talking about.”

Minkyung has always lead every adventure, determined to find  _something_. It’s always been like that—in high school,  it was the valedictorian position, and applying for mountains of scholarships, getting into college and being able to afford it. Only one of those things worked out. Perhaps it was no wonder she had been so consumed by this ghost-hunting project lately. 

The silhouette of the fire tower stands against the royal blues of the night sky, on the edge of a cliff overlooking a deep canyon below. 

“Have we ever even had a forest fire?” Yebin asks. 

“I’m sure, at least once. But not any time recently.” Minkyung shines her flashlight upward as they break through the trees and out into an open, grassy, cliff’s edge. 

The sight of the fire tower gives Yebin an odd, crawling feeling in her stomach. Like she’s being watched. She squints, and sees that by the fire tower, there’s a rickety old bridge leading across the canyon, that looks like it could snap and fall away at the lightest breeze. 

“This is definitely a lot weirder at night.” she murmurs to Minkyung. 

When she turns to face her companion, she sees her staring with a confused look at the window of the fire tower. Yebin looks up, and feels her body lurch with an unnatural emotion. 

In the window is the shadow of a person, but perhaps more unsettling is their burning red eyes, flickering as if they were about to burn out like an old lightbulb. 

“Shit!” Yebin gasps, instinctively clinging to Minkyung’s arm as the other girl fumbles through her bag for something. 

With shaking hands, she takes out a Polaroid camera—it must be the one Wonwoo claimed to own—and lifts it to her eye. Pressing the button, a loud “SNAP!” echos through the forest, the only noise besides a distant bird. 

At the sound of the noise, the figure in the window vibrates, and its eyes suddenly go out, the entire humanlike shape suddenly sinking away. Yebin breathes heavy, terror seeming to be reverberating through every bone in her body.

“Oh my god.” Minkyung whispers. “We have to go in there.”

“No! No f-fucking way. Let’s go home. Y-you got your picture, that should be enough.”

“This could be our only chance!” Minkyung exclaims, pulling the undeveloped photo out of the camera and shaking it. “I'm not losing this!” She runs forward, feet crunching against dry grass, the wind creaking the structure of the fire tower itself. 

Yebin can’t leave Minkyung here, and Minkyung’s the one with the car keys anyway. Hands shaking, cold as ice, she runs after her best friend. 

“Minkyung! Wait up! Don’t leave me here.”

Barely hearing her calls, her friend grips the railing of the winding fire tower stairs, too enthralled by her slowly developing photo. Panting, Yebin follows. How did this happen? Minkyung was supposed to be the sensible one, and Yebin made the reckless decisions. 

“Oh! Look!” Minkyung turns around, showing off the photo. It’s slightly streaky, and fuzzed with a dark nighttime grain, but there’s an obvious image—an ominous figure, burning red eyes, traced by a crimson glow. 

“Just go up!” Yebin hisses. “I want this to be over as soon as possible.” 

As they get closer to the top, wind blowing against the structure so hard that she can swear its going to collapse, a faint noise gets louder and louder. 

It’s some sort of scratchy tune—an old jazz song, maybe, carrying down from the window. 

“Oh my god...” Minkyung murmurs, stopping and looking up. She reaches behind her, long, dainty fingers finding Yebin’s. 

Her heart pounds, and she isn’t sure if its because of her taller companion holding her hand or because of the creepy saxophone riding the wind around them. The steps croak under her Converse-clad feet, and her beating heart threatens to crack her ribs.

Only one flight of steps left.

The music sounds old, like its been played too many times. 

They approach the balcony. The small wooden structure at the top is only about the size of perhaps a small bedroom, or a large bathroom. 

Peering into the dark windows, Minkyung holds her camera, and Yebin notices the way her fingers tremble. The confident Minkyung is gone—she seems like a deer, flighty and nervous. 

Wind rushes through the trees and the door of the fire tower swings open, startling both of them. 

Finally, the inside is displayed. 

There’s one swaying lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, flickering red. It illuminates the maps sprawled all over the floor, and stacks of strange books—on astrology, it seems, judging by one large star chart still lying open. A singular cot sits by the window, sheets thrown on the floor as if whoever was sleeping in it left in a hurry. And most haunting is the record player, spinning and spinning directly across from them at the far side of the room. 

Minkyung takes a tentative step in, snapping a picture, and approaches the record player. 

“Yebin, look. The needle is barely at the beginning of the record.”

“And?”

“That means someone just put it on.”

Goosebumps rise on Yebin’s neck. 

“But—no one came down from up there.” 

Minkyung swallows. 

“Exactly.”

A cold silence. 

Suddenly, the light goes out, with a sudden loud bang. Yebin yelps, turning to see that the red lightbulb exploded all over the room. 

“What the f-“ 

The noise of the record stops, with a loud scratch, before suddenly turning into a garbled mess of noise. Later, when Yebin reflects on the incident, she’ll realize it was the song, but in reverse. In this moment, however—she only feels the terrifying rush of fear, crawling down to her toes, telling her one thing. 

Grab Minkyung’s hand and  _run_. 


	3. for the thrill till im spent

They can’t drive fast enough. 

Yebin can’t even remember the specifics of their journey from the top of the fire tower to the inside of Minkyung’s car, just that somehow they had got there. There’s scrapes all over her legs, and her hand is sweaty from gripping Minkyung’s so tight—and now the car rattles down the gravelly road, Yebin just now able to catch her breath. 

“Hey,” Minkyung huffs, knuckles white as she holds the steering wheel, “can you reach into my pocket and pull out the Polaroid in there? The one I took of the inside of the fire tower. I never got to see it developed.”

Yebin’s hands reach into her friend’s denim jacket, pulling out a glossy photo and holding it under the light of her phone. 

She lets out a small gasp.

The photo is red-tinged from the illumination the lightbulb had provided, but much scarier is the human-shaped shadowy figure lying on the cot in the picture, the same haunting red eyes boring right into the camera lens.

 

One. Two. Three. 

Yebin separates each of the Skittles into their own tiny piles by color. She can’t resist doing it whenever she opens a bag—it calms her down.

“You’re lucky I don’t have any customers today.” Minkyung remarks.

The pair is standing in the convenience store, Minkyung behind the counter and Yebin leaning against it. 

In the background, the TV buzzes with local news—as in local, the nearest city—and the speakers play a fuzzy rendition of some pop song Yebin can’t name. 

The two mysterious polaroids rest on the countertop next to a grouping of red Skittles. 

“What are your plans for tonight?” Yebin asks, already knowing the answer. 

“I want to go back out there.”

“No way.”

“I need this. Please. We saw  _something_ out there that night.” 

“Yes, sure. But it’s dangerous. Whatever we saw...” Yebin traces the shadowy figure in the picture with her finger. “It didn’t want us to come back.” She looks up into Minkyung’s hopeful eyes. “Can’t we just be normal friends for once? Like, I don’t know, watch TV and do each other’s makeup.”

“Yebin, you know I can’t do normal anymore.” She inhales. “Please?”

 

Thus, Yebin finds herself back in Minkyung’s car, as it ascends up a hill and into the dark expanse of trees before them. 

The music playing from the car radio no longer feels comforting, just a ghostly reminder of the other night. 

“Where are we going this time?” 

“Back to the fire tower.” says Minkyung, turning down the music. “And across the bridge.”

“No! Did you see that rickety thing?” 

“Wonwoo said he crossed it. I asked him about it.”

“Like I trust him.”

“Please, Yebin! Kyungwon doesn’t believe me. I need more proof.” 

The car pulls to a screeching halt at the end of the road. 

“Fine.” Yebin opens the door, chilly night air hitting her face. “Anything for you.” she adds in a sarcastic tone, pretending she doesn’t actually mean it. 

 

Peering over the edge of the canyon, Yebin feels close to death. 

It’s a long way down—she can make out the rushing stream below, the scattered trees, but not much else. 

If nothing, it’s romantic. The setting sun, streaks of orange and red turning to purple, accompanied by the bridge, which leads across the cliffs and into a dense unknown.

If they even make it across—can they make it back? She doesn’t want to think about the answer to that. 

Glancing up at the fire tower, Yebin squints. The lights are still out, but more importantly, Minkyung leans over the balcony, obsessively taking photos with the Polaroid—as if nothing had ever happened the last time she was up there.

Why is her best friend so brave?

It’s not fair. 

Desperately, Yebin wishes for the same sort of bravery Minkyung has. 

At least enough bravery to ask her out on one date. 

She shakes her head. Thinking about dates is kind of out of the question when you’re quite possibly being viciously haunted. 

“Yeb, let’s go!” Minkyung shouts, running down the steps of the fire tower, joyful smile on her face illuminated by a fading summer sun. 

“Fine. But you have to hold my hand.”

Minkyung jogs next to Yebin, snapping a quick photo of the entrance to the bridge with her other camera—a vintage film one she had brought to make sure there wasn’t something wrong with the Polaroid film.

“Of course I’ll hold your hand, dumbass.” she says, corner of her mouth curling into an affectionate smirk. 

Their fingers lace together, without even making eye contact. 

“Minky, I’m scared.” Yebin whines, looking out over the distance they had to cross. The sky was only becoming darker. 

“Let’s just go for it.”

“I’m going to die one day because of you.”

Minkyung places a foot onto the bridge, and turns to smile at Yebin. 

“You love me.” she says. 

“I do.”

_Step._

Yebin’s feet finally touch the bridge itself. 

She hears a creak, but nothing too dangerous. 

“Don’t look down.” Minkyung’s voice says. Yebin realizes her eyes are instinctively squeezed shut. 

_Step._

“Come on,” the taller girl encourages, “move faster, dummy.”

_Step._

_Step._

Another creak. She opens her eyes, but keeps her focus on the back of Minkyung’s head. 

_Step._

_Step._

_Step._

Are they halfway across the bridge already? She isn’t even sure. 

Yebin senses a noise—maybe its static, or a crackle of a fire, or something around her. 

_Step._

_Step._

_Step._

“Minky, I’m scared.” she repeats. 

The crackle—it almost sounds like the scratch of a record, reverberating through the valley—increases in volume. 

“It’s ok.” Minkyung says. Yebin feels her friends thumb rub against her own. 

 _Step._  

There’s another creak, but much, much louder, like something is about to snap, and the bridge wobbles under Yebin’s feet, much, much harder than usual. Hearing Minkyung gasp, her breath picks up. She glances behind her and sees that they’re far, far away from the side they began on.

_Step._

“We’re almost there.”

Yebin glances behind again, and suddenly her heart begins to pound at a sight—the sight of a glowing pair of red eyes and a faint reminiscence of a human figure standing at the beginning of the bridge. 

“Minky.” she croaks.

The creak is loud, so loud it’s almost deafening.

_Step._

Not her step. The step of the figure on the bridge. 

“Minkyung. Go.” 

As if they’re in sync, they begin to move as fast as possible, stumbling, feet slapping against the wood of the bridge, the static-like noise increasing and increasing till it practically threatens to burst Yebin’s eardrums. 

Right as her feet hit what she thinks is land, she turns to see a horrible sight—the entire bridge collapsing in on itself. First goes whatever was supporting it against the cliffside, then the ropes, then the actual bridge itself—all swallowed into the canyon.

 “Fuck.” Minkyung gasps. 

She fumbles in her pockets for something—pulling out the photos and staring in disbelief at the developed images. 

The first couple seem like normal shots from the top of the fire tower—but the distant, opposite cliffside displays a tiny, red light. 

The last photo, took from the same place, has an even creepier image. Right at the front of the bridge stand two figures. One in a leather jacket, holding up a camera. Dressed, to a T, like Minkyung. In fact, it  _is_  Minkyung, and next to her is a fearful Yebin, kicking her Converse in the dirt. 

Them, a about five minutes before, right before they got on the bridge. 

Yet—it had been taken more than fifteen minutes ago.

 

As if on queue, the light in the fire tower turns on. 


	4. preserved in sugar

_Ring. Riiing. Riiiiiiiing._

No answer.

“No fucking service!” Yebin shouts at the sky like it’ll bring her an answer. 

“I don’t understand.” Minkyung rubs her forehead. The pair pace at the edge of the cliff—they’ve walked for more than a mile now, trying to find another bridge. The omnipresent red light of the fire tower blinks in the distance, like a warning.

“I mean, we live in the middle of fucking nowhere. Of course there’s no service.” 

“No, not that, idiot. These stupid pictures.” Minkyung holds up the photo to the flashlight. “I watched this get print out of the Polaroid. I took this. But it’s us—us in the future.” 

Yebin kicks a rock, watching it tumble off he edge of the canyon and into the deep, dark, below. 

“Nothing makes sense right now. We’re going to die out here, because you wanted to fucking prove Kyungwon wrong.”

“I’m sorry that my life is so meaningless and shitty that I try to find some fucking way to entertain myself!”

Silence.

Minkyung holds her film camera up to Yebin, and snaps a photo, the flash stunning the other girl, who hops back slightly. 

“There. Preserve the memories. If we ever get out of this alive.”

Yebin’s fingers drum on her phone. The tiny bars on the top still give her no hope. She stares at the lock screen to assure herself this is all real.

_11:47 PM. July 18th._

“I’m sorry.” she says, finally.

“For what?”

“For being bitchy. You don’t deserve that... especially after all you’ve been through.”

“I’m not some charity case, Kang Yebin.”

“I know I just—“

“It’s ok. I’m not mad. You just... don’t have to pity me.”

She turns around, reaching back once again for Yebin’s hand. It’s a move of comfort now. A bit of tenderness in the dark. 

Suddenly, something bright sweeps the night air—a beam of light. It’s not a chilling red one, but someone’s flashlight. 

“Minkyung? Yebin?” a voice calls. Someone familiar, someone—

“Eunwoo?” Yebin calls back, creasing her eyebrow. 

Footsteps patter closer and closer. 

“Oh my god! You guys! Oh my god! I was so scared!” Eunwoo shouts as she bursts forward, flashlight waving maniacally in the air. 

“What are you doing out here?” Minkyung asks, confused. 

“What do you mean? I’ve been looking for you! These woods get so deep! I was starting to think you guys were... you know.”

Yebin finds herself gripping Minkyung’s hand tighter. “Eunwoo, we’ve only been out here for a couple of hours.”

“You two should not be joking at a time like this. I mean, it’s been days!”

“What?” Minkyung replies.

Instinctively, Yebin grabs her phone, opening up her lockscreen.

_10:37 PM. July 23rd._

Her heart starts to pound, so fast that its almost trying to break her chest. She tilts the screen so Minkyung can see it, who looks back at her wide-eyed. 

“Thank god you guys were just about to find your way back to this tower!” Eunwoo exclaims. “Guess I didn’t even need to come.”

“Wh-“ Yebin blinks, and looks up to see—the fire tower. Red light illuminating the ground below them. They’re right in front of it. 

But it doesn’t make any sense. They were far away. So far away from it, miles even and-

“The bridge.” Minkyung breathes.

Yebin turns to see the bridge, the bridge she could so clearly remember shattering and breaking apart, still there. Still standing tall.

“You two ok? I know spending five days in the woods can take its toll. Come on guys, I’ll give you a ride home. Don’t worry about your car, Minkyung, Kyungwon drove it to your apartment for you. I can’t believe you guys are alright!”

Yebin swears she can feel every drop of blood rushing through her veins. 

The overbearing chill of the red lights from the fire tower above only make it worse.

 

“Sweetie, I just don’t understand how it happened.” Yebin’s mother takes her hand, looking concerned. 

“We crossed the bridge and we... we just got lost is all.” 

“I’m worried.”

“I’m fine.” Yebin flips over, burying her face in her pillow. “Nayoung was fine with it. She said she’d give me a week off.”

“Are you and Minkyung ok? I just get... concerned.”

“We’re doing just fine, with what we have in this stupid fucking town.” 

There’s an awkward pause—the fan in the corner buzzes a warm breeze in Yebin’s direction. Her mother stands up.

“Just... don’t get hurt.”

_Bzzt. Bzzt._

Yebin’s phone rumbles under her leg. Two vibrations means it’s Minkyung—so she pulls it out.

It seems Minkyung’s the only one she can trust anymore. 

Of course, it’s always been like that, they’ve had a strange bond since they were children, but there’s something more solid now, a tangible string of confusion and an inexplainable experience that ties them together. 

She rolls out of bed, wincing at the morning sun beaming through her singular window. 

 

It’s funny to be back in the Diamond City High darkroom. Countless hours the pair had spent in there—Yebin sitting on a rickety metal stool, watching Minkyung develop whatever arty pictures she’d taken, the two of them dreaming of bigger and better things. 

Ms. Kim has always liked Minkyung, so the two caught a lucky break when they begged to use the darkroom to develop the film from last night—or the last five nights, whatever it was. 

Yebin stares at the photos floating in the liquid, the darkened red light of the room a mix of unsettling and nostalgic. 

“Minky, are we going crazy?” she asks. 

“I don’t know.” the taller replies, pinning a print to the wall to dry. “At least, if we are, we’re doing it together, right?” 

“God, you’re so corny.” Yebin whines, but her heart flutters fast at those words. 

“You love it.”

“I do.”

They exchange smiles, barely visible in the dark of the room, and for a second, everything feels normal, and not like their entire world is turning topsy-turvy. High school visions flood Yebin’s mind—memories of Minkyung’s pretty face proudly admiring her work. 

She misses that, when they were innocent.

When they weren’t adults, with responsibilities. Or ghosts. 

“Hey, Yebin...” Minkyung pulls a fully developed photo off the wall. “Look at this.” 

“I can’t see in the dark, silly.”

“Pssht.”

The pair move into the bright of the art room, where Ms. Kim sits at her desk, ignoring whatever those silly kids are up to.

When Yebin can see the picture in full light, her stomach drops and her brow falls.

The photo—the one Minkyung had taken right before they got on the bridge, displays something completely different than what Yebin remembers from that night. 

The bridge is crumbling, falling apart, but most horrifyingly, are the bodies of Minkyung and Yebin, holding to each other by just their hands, suspended in mid-air, about to tumble to some horrific death in the canyon. 

The photographer looks to her shorter counterpart. 

“Is this what was supposed to happen to us that night?” 

Yebin curls her fingers into a fist. 

“I don’t know. I don’t understand.”

They keep their voices hushed, not to disturb Ms. Kim. 

Minkyung ducks back into the darkroom, murmuring to herself.

“Most of these came out as boring landscapes but... this one! This one.”

She runs out, holding a shiny print. There’s Yebin, eyes stunned from the flash of Minkyung’s camera on that darkened night. But, there’s someone next to her—a female figure, half transparent, glowing red, with her hand over Yebin’s mouth, eyes a burning crimson.

“Holy fuck.” Yebin mutters. “That thing... was touching me?”

“I don’t know.” Minkyung hisses. “How are we to know that any of these pictures are real? I mean, we didn’t fall down the canyon as far as we know, and apparently the bridge never broke. I don’t get it.”

Yebin stares at the two pictures next to each other, stomach crawling like there’s a writhing snake inside. 

“Something is afoot in Diamond City.”

 

“Are you sure you’re ok with coming back to work?”

“Nayoung. I’m fine.” Yebin adjusts her uniform, giving her best ‘I’m ok’ smile to her manager. 

“If you say so.” Nayoung smiles back. “You know, I admire you.”

“What?” Yebin says, taken aback. 

“You’re very brave.”

Yebin can’t help but chuckle. “Really? Are you serious?”

“You survived out there for that long. And just... in general. You inspire me.” Nayoung tilts her head, giving a tiny smile. 

“Pfft. Nayoung, if anything, it’s you who’s inspiring. I mean—you’re managing this entire store, you have your own house, everything.”

“You don’t get it, exactly.”

Yebin just looks at her, confused. 

Nayoung continues. “I can do all these things, but these are just what’s expected of me as an adult. I’m not brave enough to leave this town, or to pursue my dreams. Only brave enough to live a drab, adult life.” 

They both drink in the awkward quiet. 

“I’m sorry.” Yebin says, quieter, as if she spoke louder she’d disturb something. 

Nayoung only gives her another tiny smile, but this time, her eyes seem flooded with regret.

 

Yebin walks out of work, whistling as she spins her car keys on her finger. 

It’s been five days since she and Minkyung lost themselves in the woods, but for some reason, Yebin still feels haunted, like something eerie is coming. 

She looks down at her feet, staring at her scuffed up Converse and silly sushi socks, and tries to hum a tune to erase the anxiety in her stomach. 

Strangely, she hears something. 

It’s a long, staticky scratch, and it comes like nails raking down Yebin’s back. She doesn’t want to look up. 

Something starts playing—an old jazz tune, awfully familiar. Horribly, awfully familiar. 

The white tips of her converse turn red in a mysterious light. 

Slowly, fearfully, Yebin raises her head, fingers grasping for Minkyung’s hand she knows isn’t there. But God, does she want it to be. 

The sky is burning a pure, cloudless, bloody red. The forest in the distance fuzzes in Yebin’s vision like it’s on an old TV screen, and when she looks behind her, she sees that the supermarket is too—literally glitching in and out of reality. 

The jazz only increases in volume, and sweat beads down her neck. 

Utterly terrified, movements stuttered like she isn’t working quite right, Yebin searches for her car in the parking lot, which seems much, much larger than normal. 

There’s nothing. Her heart rhythmically seems to move with the beat of the drums in the jazz that appears to echo everywhere, yet come from nowhere. 

Another, painful scratch tears at her eardrums. 

Down, across the parking lot, she sees something. 

A burning, flickering human figure with red eyes. 


	5. gravity, centrifuge, divergence

Minkyung looks to the photographs on the floor, and then to Kyungwon. 

“Well?”

“You’re telling me... you time traveled. And this is your proof.”

“Well—“

“Minkyung, if this is a prank, I swear to god, I’m going to fucking body you.”

“It’s not! I swear on my mother’s grave. Literally.”

There’s a painfully awkward pause as the two of them look at the framed picture of Minkyung’s parents sitting on top of the kitchen counter.

“Listen,” Minkyung continues, “I wouldn’t lie to you. I don’t know just want happened in there, in that forest, but it felt like an hour.”

Kyungwon gives Minkyung a sympathetic look—she can’t quite tell if that look in the other girl’s eyes is pity or empathy, but she accepts it anyways. It was to be figured that nobody would believe her. 

Her roommate leans in closer, studying the photos. 

“This one.” Kyungwon says. “This is the one that makes me trust you.” She points to the shot of Minkyung and Yebin falling with the bridge. “I don’t know how you could’ve faked that.” 

“I’m glad you can... see it.” Minkyung nervously laughs. “I’m starting to feel like I’m losing my mind.”

She looks at the apartment door again, as if any moment someone could walk in, then looks at her watch. 

“Yebin was supposed to be here half an hour ago.” 

“Is she still at work?” Kyungwon asks, standing up to stretch her legs. 

“No. She gets off at 7 on Thursdays.” 

“You have her schedule memorized?”

“Well, of course.” Minkyung replies, thinking nothing of Kyungwon’s smirk. “Just so we can go ghost hunting and stuff.” 

“Sure.” Kyungwon opens up a bag of chips, leaning against the kitchen counter. “Can I play some music? It feels too quiet in here.” 

“Of course.”

Minkyung glances at the door once more, an unsettling feeling creeping up her spine.

 

An hour passes. 

Minkyung is used to Yebin’s tendency to be late, but she’s never been more than an hour. 

Not for Minkyung at least—she can remember Yebin running all the way to her piano recital from work sophomore year. No, she’s never late for her. 

Minkyung finds herself reaching into her pocket, and pulling out a tube of cherry chapstick. 

Right as she uncaps it, Kyungwon interrupts her. 

“You’re anxious.”

“What do you mean?”

“You only use that when you’re anxious.”

“Ok, so what if I am?”

“You should go find her.”

They stare at each other, Minkyung’s anxiety rising and falling in waves. 

“I’m scared.” she finally says, rubbing the chapstick against her lips like it’ll alleviate something—the possibility of mistake, the possibility of loss. 

“I’ll come with you. Come on, Minky. It can’t be that bad. I bet she just had to work overtime or something.”

Kyungwon, ever calm in the storm. Minkyung admires that. 

She stands up, foot still anxiously tapping on the ground, but feeling a little bit of hope. 

 

When they pull into the supermarket parking lot, the first thing Minkyung notices is that Yebin’s car is still sitting there. 

That shitty used minivan they’ve taken too many rides in—stupid, tacky plush dice hanging from the rearview mirror. 

“See?” Kyungwon says, lightly punching her roommate in the arm, “She’s still at work.”

“I’m going inside. Just to make sure.” Minkyung says, running her fingers through her hair, biting her lip. 

She opens the car door, and looks up at the setting sun over the nearly-empty parking lot. Still, something is crawling inside her from head to toe—an anxiety that Yebin isn’t ok. 

It’s been a sense of hers since she was little—she always could partially just  _feel_ that something with Yebin wasn’t right. When she scraped her knee, when she was getting herself into some kind of trouble, when she had been dumped, Minkyung felt it. And now, that feeling was that Yebin was in danger. 

She and Kyungwon walk through the automatic doors of the supermarket, the small  _ding_  greeting them. They see Nayoung, humming to herself as she sweeps the completely empty store. 

Nayoung looks up. 

“Oh! You two! I was just about to close up. What do you need?”

Kyungwon exchanges a glance with Minkyung.

“We were just looking for Yebin.”

“Yebin clocked out two hours ago.” 

It doesn’t settle with Minkyung at first, and all she notices is that one of the droning fluorescent lights hanging over their heads flashes red for a singular second.

“But...” Kyungwon appears utterly perplexed. “Her car is still in the parking lot.”

Nayoung stops sweeping, eyes shifting up from the floor. 

“What? But... I watched her walk out there. Oh my god, it still is out there.”

“Maybe she decided to walk home.” Kyungwon suggests, looking for something to comfort Minkyung, who is already searching her pockets for her tube of cherry chapstick.

“No. She promised me that she would come right on time. Yebin doesn’t break promises.” 

“I-I’m sorry, guys.” Nayoung half-stutters. “I don’t know what to say. I thought for sure she had left.”

The light flashes red again. Is it only Minkyung who notices this? Maybe she is fucking going crazy, maybe even Yebin is an illu—

Ring. Riiiing.

Her cluttered thoughts are interrupted by the ringtone emanating from her back pocket.

When she reaches for it, her heart sinks when she sees Eunwoo’s contact instead of Yebin’s. Both Kyungwon and Nayoung stare at her while she answers—like they’re waiting for some sort of magical solution to come from this call.

“Minky.” It’s Eunwoo’s voice, all scratchy from the phone, sounding vaguely panicked. “Minky, holy fuck. You have to get down here, right now. To my house. I don’t know what to do. Yebin, she’s... she’s on my roof.” 

 

Minkyung screeches to a stop in front of Eunwoo’s house. She had demanded to be the one to drive, grabbing the keys from Kyungwon before her roommate could even say anything. For some reason, Nayoung was in the car too, citing “making sure her employees were safe”. 

Practically kicking the car door open, Minkyung frantically runs out into the street, where she sees Eunwoo and Soonyoung, standing at the curb, looking up at the sky. 

Her head shifts up as well—and there she sees it. 

Yebin’s silhouette is clear against the night sky as she paces back and forth along the sloped incline of the roof.

“Yebin!” Minkyung yells. 

The shadow of Yebin turns, and Minkyung practically yelps when she sees it. The entirety of her best friend’s eyes are a bloodshot, burning, illuminated scarlet red. 

Yebin turns away, and continues her pacing. 

“It’s no fucking use.” Eunwoo says. “She’s been pacing and muttering like that, nonstop. She won’t listen to any of us.”

“I don’t know how the fuck she’s doing that with her eyes, either.” Soonyoung adds. “But I’m so confused. I don’t know how she got up there. I just heard a thumping while I was trying to fall asleep, and when I ran out here, she was just walking around. There’s no entry point to the roof from inside the house. I don’t get it.” 

“Minkyung, fuck everything I said earlier.” Kyungwon hisses. “You were totally right.”

“I need to get her down from there.” Minkyung says, a determined look crossing her face. 

“I don’t think you can. We’re just going to have to call the police at this point. There’s no way to do it.” Soonyoung tries to say, but Minkyung already feels a rush in her bones. 

She has to save Yebin. 

Yebin’s done it way too many times for her, she owes her one, at least. 

“I’m going to climb it.” Minkyung announces. 

“Climb what?” Eunwoo asks. 

“Your house.”

Minkyung charges forward, hopping onto the front porch, fingers gripping the balcony railing as she hoists herself up.

“Minky, wait—“ Kyungwon shouts, to no avail.

She looks up at the small roof covering the porch and awkwardly balancing on the railing, legs wobbling like they’re going to give out, she grips the very edge, kicking one foot to rest against a windowsill. 

Minkyung’s not really a climber, or an athlete, but something just makes her want to do this—no,  _need_  to do this—and so, with all her strength, she lifts herself up, knee roughly scraping against tile and wood. 

“Holy shit.” she vaguely hears Soonyoung say, but him and the shouts of everyone else have become a background noise as distant as a faraway car. 

She can see Yebin more closely from the top of the balcony’s mini-roof, and she studies her best-friend’s face. Her lips are moving fast, like she’s chanting an incantation, and her eyes, her horrible cherry-red eyes, gaze off into nowhere. 

Minkyung grabs a storm pipe, placing one foot on top of a molding detail, pulling herself up again, breath heavy with a weight of adrenaline, as she uses her free hand to grab the edge of a window. 

For a split second, she hangs almost completely free, before her feet land on a tiny ledge and she crawls—desperate, animal-like up to the window she’s gripped so feverishly on. Her feet land on the tiny windowsill, anxiety so sharp it doesn’t even hurt anymore. As she reaches for the final conquest, the edge of the roof, her breathing slows down. 

She can do this. 

When her palms land flat on the coarse roof, tile, she feels a few layers of skin scrape away—but its fine. 

She uses every last bit of strength in her body, pushing every muscle fiber, and lifts herself steadily, cheek so close to the roof it’s almost scraping, fully aware that one slip-up could result in instant death, or at the least, a lot of injuries. 

Her knee lands on the roof with a scrape, but its fine, and she’s there, there on top of the house. 

A faint cheer resonates—she knows its from down below, but it feels like it’s coming from a stadium miles away, and she looks up. 

Yebin, standing over her. 

“Yebin, it’s me.” Minkyung pants, the amount of energy she just exerted suddenly fleeing from her body. 

Yebin says nothing, but her lips move like she’s trying to say something.

Their eyes are meeting—or as far as Minkyung can tell, there’s not really anything there in Yebin’s except for pure red. 

“Can you hear me?” she asks. 

Yebin opens her mouth, like she’s trying to scream, and nothing comes out except a long, terrifying static noise.

“It’s just me.” Minkyung reaches out her hand, and it touches Yebin’s. 

The moment the very skin of their fingertips contact, Minkyung’s entire head feels like it’s spinning. She looks up and sees that no longer is the sky blue, but a burning, perfect red, but right in front of her is Yebin, who continues to look at her, her eyes no longer scarlet, but now full of fear. 

“Minkyung!” she shouts, but like the kneeling girl can’t hear her. “Minky, I can hear you, why can’t you hear me!”

“I can hear you now, Yebin.” She grips her hand tighter. “I can hear you!”

“Minkyung?” 

“What are you doing on Eunwoo’s roof?”

“What do you mean? We’re at your apartment.”

“What?”

Minkyung blinks, then looks around. The roof is gone, the faint crowd of her friends is gone, and instead they’re in Minkyung’s living room, standing in a circle of scattered photographs. She gazes out the window—no red sky. A perfectly normal nighttime one. 

She stands up off her knees. 

“What just...”

“Happened.” Yebin finishes.

“I don’t know.”

“I was here... I don’t know why I was here. I was trying to leave for your apartment, but something happened in the parking lot. I’m forgetting it already, fucking hell. But then I was here, and you came in the door, but you couldn’t hear anything I was saying, but once you took my hand you could—“

“Hear everything. Yebin, you were on Eunwoo’s roof. Your eyes were fucking glowing, and everyone saw. I-“

She turns and glances at the clock. 3 am. At least 6 hours have passed. 

The sound of a key in the lock startles the pair, who still haven’t let go of each other’s hands, and suddenly, Kyungwon busts in through the door. 

“You guys! Oh my god! I’ve been driving all over town looking for you!”

“Wait...” Minkyung furrows her brow, searching her memory, trying to make it all make sense. “If we were on the roof then just suddenly came here...”

“You disappeared.” clarifies Kyungwon. “It was like you just kind of... glitched out of reality. It was freaky.” She runs to the kitchen sink, filling up a glass of water. “I feel like I’m high on something.”

“That was only a minute ago for me.” Minkyung clarifies.

“What?”

“We just... traveled here, got here, whatever. Like we left Eunwoo’s roof and then we were here, but Yebin was here the whole time, or... I don’t know. I don’t understand! What is happening to us!” 

Yebin’s phone loudly rings, and everyone jumps, nerves already stretched to the edge with tension. 

“Mom?” Yebin answers. “Yeah, I’m at Minkyung’s. I’m just going to stay the night, maybe two, ok? Go back to sleep, it’s fine.”

“You’re going to stay?” Minkyung asks, perplexed. 

“I don’t want to be alone.” Yebin says, looking down at the pictures on the floor. 

 

“Hey, Minky, do you still have those pictures I took of you in high school?” Yebin asks. 

The pair is sitting on Minkyung’s bed, under a blanket, lights still on like they’re little kids scared of the dark. 

“Of course. God, I remember those. I love you, but photography is not one of your talents.” Minkyung stands up as Yebin chuckles, and walks over to her desk, pulling open a drawer to reveal a small envelope. 

She shakes the contents onto the bed, photos falling out face down onto the sheets. 

Yebin picks one up, perhaps expecting a rush of nostalgia, but instead her eyes widen in fear. 

“What’s wrong?” Minkyung asks, a stupid question. She already senses the answer. 

Yebin wordlessly hands the photo to Minkyung as she begins to flip the others over. 

The image no longer depicts the smiling Minkyung she remembered it—instead it’s a photo of her, lying motionless in what looks to be a clear pool of water. Chillingly, her photo counterpart doesn’t have eyes, just vibrant red orbs burning in place.

“They’re all like this.” Yebin whispers. “But they’re signed. That’s my handwriting in the corner. I never took these.”

Above them, Minkyung’s bedroom light flickers red. 


	6. unwaking dream

“So... are we going to talk about what the hell happened last night?” Eunwoo finally asks. 

The five of them—Yebin, Minkyung, Kyungwon, Nayoung, and Eunwoo, are jammed into one of the diner’s booths. 

Minkyung stabs her fork into her waffle. The diner no longer has the comforting atmosphere it used to—now the red and purple tints of the neon lights only make her anxious. 

“Well... What is there to talk about, specifically?” she says.

“The fact that you and Yebin literally disappeared from the fabric of reality right in front of our fucking eyes, and apparently appeared in your apartment 6 hours later.”

“Do you think either of us understand what the hell is happening either?” Yebin says, rubbing her temples like she has a headache. 

Kyungwon nudges Minkyung. “The pictures, show them the pictures.”

Minkyung reaches into her bag and pulls out a manilla file folder, spreading it open on the table. 

“This is everything I’ve taken. Trust me, they’re all film. I haven’t manipulated them at all, trust me.” 

Eunwoo squints at one of the polaroids. 

“These are pictures of... you two.”

“Yup.”

“But you took them?”

“Isn’t that the question.”

 

Minkyung trudges up the hill, into the graveyard.

It’s unnaturally huge—centuries worth of bodies lie just feet below the ground. People born in Diamond City often don’t leave it, even in death. 

Despite the size, Minkyung can always find her parent’s grave. It’s under a huge cherry tree to the east, one with a huge knobby trunk that she used to climb when she was younger. 

It’s not like her parents bodies are buried there. Their bodies were too mangled by the horrific accident that they were instead cremated for a more beautiful goodbye. 

Minkyung was the one too toss the ashes into the canyon. It’s what they would’ve wanted anyway, or that’s what she hopes—her parents loved the woods of the mountain, and taking hikes around the canyon. She didn’t want them to be locked under the earth for years and years. 

The graves are more for Minkyung—something to visit, to sit by, to pretend her parent’s spirits are there. The graveyard had once been a favorite spot for Minkyung and her mother to go visit, because it was so secluded and peaceful, and they’d sit under this very cherry tree, her mother reading aloud to her. 

Now she sits and reads aloud to both of her parents. 

She reaches into her bag as she squats under the cherry tree, pulling out a copy of  _Jane Eyre_ , her mother’s favorite novel.

“Where’d we leave off, guys?” she says aloud, setting down her camera and her things on the ground. “We started again, didn’t we. Hmm.” She flips through the dog eared, fading pages of the book. “Oh, here.”

A light breeze ruffles her hair as she starts. 

“ _My heart beat thick, my head grew hot; a sound filled my ears, which I deemed the rushing of wings: something seemed near me; I was oppressed, suffocated: endurance broke down—I uttered a wild, involuntary cry—I rushed to the door and shook the lock in a desperate effort.”_ She grins at the slabs of granite embellished with her mother and father’s names. “Spooky, huh?” 

Out of her periphery, she senses a flash, and hears the click of a camera. She turns to see the Polaroid, which lies on the ground next to her, printing something out. Another photo. It took a photo on its own. 

Minkyung’s stomach crawls. 

Anxiously, fingers trembling, she reaches for the photo, waiting for it to develop, pressing it down on top of the pages of the book, over a nicely drawn illustration labeled “ _The Red Room_ ”. 

Slowly, the picture turns from a chemical mess into actually something—an image of a pair of people under a tree. As the picture becomes clearer, Minkyung feels her breath stutter inside her mouth like it can’t quite get out. 

The photo is of her and her mother, under the same cherry tree she now sits under. In the picture—she’s only maybe 10, and her mother is holding a copy of  _Jane Eyre_ , peacefully reading to her young, innocent daughter. 

Before Minkyung can fully process anything, she hears another click, then another, then another. She turns to the camera, which is uncontrollably spitting out Polaroids at what seems to be lightning speed, and it’s vibrating on the ground, like its about to combust. She hops back, another Polaroid hitting her leg, before the camera finally glows with a red light and then suddenly, with a crackle and a snap, explodes. 

Plastic and glass shrapnel flies into the air, and Minkyung ducks as a few more Polaroids hit her cheek and elbow.

She looks at the pictures scattered around her. 

Minkyung at her 16th birthday party. 

Newborn Minkyung. 

Minkyung drinking for the first time at age 15. 

Minkyung taking photos of Yebin climbing a tree.

Minkyung at her parent’s funeral. 

Minkyung sobbing alone in her room at age 6 while her parents fight. 

And the last one, which makes her entire body practically retch—Minkyung lying in a coffin. 

She’s about to panic, when the noise of distant sobs interrupts her.

Down the hill, two figures approach. 

Yebin and Kyungwon. But Yebin is in a black dress and coat, sobbing into a tissue while Kyungwon, also in what looks to be funeral attire, rubs her shoulders, whispering.

“I just miss her so much! She was gone too soon.” Yebin cries. 

“It’s ok. I’m sure she’s resting peacefully with her parents now.” Kyungwon assures. 

Confused, Minkyung looks underneath her. 

She’s sitting on a granite slab, marked  _“Rest in peace Kim Minkyung. Gone too soon_.”

“Yebin!” she shouts, on instinct. The sobbing girl and her companion look up, meeting Minkyung’s eyes with just as much confusion as her, before a sudden, loud scratching noise echoes in the sky of the graveyard. Kyungwon and Yebin both say something, but it goes unheard as their bodies flicker away like dying lightbulbs. For a split second, Minkyung swears they look like the mysterious figures she’s so commonly stalked by. When they suddenly blip away from reality, Minkyung looks under her to see her gravestone gone. 

Panting with anxiety, she begins to gather the photos. 

Why is it that every time something happens, it leaves her more confused than before?

 

“You broke my camera!” Wonwoo exclaims. “Fucking how? I thought you were the photography expert.” 

“Things happen.” Minkyung says nervously, fiddling with her fingers behind her back.

“Listen, just give it to me and I’ll fix it.” he says, sticking his hand out. 

“I really don’t think it’s fixable.”

“Anything is fixable.”

“It kind of... exploded.”

Wonwoo’s fist slams down on the coffee shop counter. 

“Excuse me?” 

At the sound of his voice, several customers, mostly there to take advantage of the wifi, look up.

“It was an accident.” Minkyung says, embarrassed. 

“I knew it. Knew I shouldn’t have trusted you with it.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Wonwoo’s voice lowers a decibel. 

“Because you like to ruin everything, Minkyung.”

Her face only grows hotter. 

“Can you not bring up our idiotic past in public!” she exclaims, trying her hardest to keep from yelling.

Wonwoo turns to pick up a dirty cup, rubbing it with his rag. 

“I didn’t mention anything about ‘our past’.”

“It was implied.”

“Excuse me!” Sooyoung, the shop’s owner, shouts over the two of them. “If you’re going to get in fights, at least do it in the back.” She gestures to a door leading to the often not-used back patio. 

Wonwoo shrugs, setting down the cup and the towel. 

“I’m sorry, ok.” Minkyung continues. “I’m just self conscious about that stuff. And I’m sorry about your camera exploding too.” 

The two of them head through the door into the patio, which is flush with afternoon light, and completely empty. 

Wonwoo reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a box of cigarettes. 

“Minky-“

“Don’t call me that.”

“Ok. Minkyung. Why’d you come here then? If my camera supposedly exploded, why’d you tell me? Why not just keep it a secret. Why not lie.” He clicks open his lighter. “You’re especially good at that.”

“Can you not be an egotistical asshole for two seconds?”

“Could say the same for you.” 

“Jesus. You were so nice when Yebin and I borrowed the camera. What’s your deal now? Back to hating me, just like the old times?” 

Wonwoo takes a long drag on his cigarette as they both sit down at a tiny table, as far away from the noise of the cafe as possible. 

“Because. I respect Yebin, at least. Even if she’s part of the reason I ‘hate’ you, to use your words, she’s innocent. She didn’t do anything.” 

“I never  _did_  anything!” Minkyung exclaims, fingers gripping tight into her skin so hard they might bleed. 

“You strung me along for three years. You ruined my friendship with one of my best friends because you were fucking in love with her, and you didn’t want to admit you were a giant lesbo, and you still don’t. And when we broke up, you spread rumors about me. You didn’t even let me come to your parents goddamn funeral, despite the fact that I loved them more than my real parents. You’re the egocentric one, you only care about yourself and the people you deem important to you, and you like to make fucking everything about yourself, and you never properly apologize for shit.” Wonwoo blows a cloud of smoke out of his lips. “There. You happy?”

A silence lands between the two, thicker than syrup. 

Minkyung scrapes her nails against the grated surface of the table, tears welling up in her eyes, because he’s  _right_. That’s what makes it so stupid, what makes her so stupid.

Wonwoo suddenly looks concerned the moment he sees Minkyung starting to cry. 

“I’m sorry.” He leans forward, snubbing his cigarette on his pant leg. “I went too far.”

“It’s fine.” Minkyung rubs her jacket sleeve against her face. “You are completely right. I’m sorry. I can’t fucking—“ She stops to hiccup a sob. “I can’t fucking deal right now, that’s all. My world is falling apart.” She leans back her head, like it’ll stop the tears from rolling down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Wonwoo. I’m sorry for all that shit I pulled. There’s no excuse, and just a sorry won’t cut it, but I’m sorry.”

“It’s cool.”

“That’s all you’ve got! Just ‘it’s cool’!” Minkyung says, giggling, the sudden absurdity of the entire situation she’s currently in hitting her. 

“I’ve never been a very expressive man.” Wonwoo replies, with a weak smile. “I’m worried about you, Minky. I can’t be mad at you forever, it’s ridiculous of me. It won’t solve anything.” 

“You have a right to be pissed at me.”

“Ok then, I’m pissed at you because you’re putting yourself in immense danger constantly.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.” Wonwoo leans back in his chair, balancing with his foot as he clicks his lighter on and off—probably a reflex to stop himself from smoking another cigarette. “Getting lost in the woods for five days? Getting injured by falling down hills? Whatever the fuck happened on the roof that one night that Soonyoung refuses to talk about? The incident that apparently caused my camera to  _explode_? Whatever you’re doing, you need to stop it before you seriously get hurt. It’s not just ghost hunting anymore, there’s something more going on, and though no one seems to want to talk to me about it, it’s best for you if you stop whatever it is.” He leans in close, lighter still flickering on and off. “There’s more to this town than you think, and it’s best you stay away before something more than a scrape or a bruise happens.”

“Wonwoo, I—“ Minkyung tries to interrupt him.

“By the way, yes, I do have another Polaroid camera if you need it. I figured that’s what you were here to ask about. I’ll drop it by your apartment tomorrow. Just stay safe, ok Minky? You have my number if you need it. I should get back to work.” He stands up, walking back through the door and into the cafe, leaving Minkyung stunned and alone, tears still grazing her cheeks.

 

“I’m stuck.” Minkyung puts her head in her hands, staring down at the photos for the hundredth time. “I don’t get it, I don’t know what to do anymore. No leads. I spent all of work staring at these dumb pictures. Nothing.”

Eunwoo looks up from the photo of Minkyung she had been so intricately studying. 

“How about we go back to the start?” she says with a shrug.

“Like time travel? At this point, wouldn’t even be surprised if that’s possible.”

“No, I mean, like back to that tower. It was once you guys took the photo of that first ghost that everything started happening, right?”

“No!” Yebin exclaims. “No way am I going back to that tower or that bridge. That was the scariest day of my life.” 

Minkyung puts her hand on Yebin’s leg without thinking. 

“It’ll be fine. We’ll just go look around a little, nothing big. I’ll stay with you, ok?”

“But what if we get stuck in there for another five days? Or five months? Or five years?” 

Minkyung’s fingers crawl to Yebin’s, clasping the other girl’s arm. 

“We have to stop this somehow, whatever it takes.”

“If you want, Yebin, you can stay here with me.” Kyungwon says, looking up from the dishes she’s currently scrubbing. 

“No. I’ll go.” Yebin says, squeezing Minkyung’s hand. “I want to be brave.”

“I would like to come.” 

They turn to see Nayoung at the doorway, carrying two things: a backpack and a rifle, resting over her shoulder.

“Nayoung!” Eunwoo yelps. “Where the flying hell did you get that!” 

“It was my grandma’s. She used to take me out for target practice in the woods. I’m pretty handy with it, actually.” Nayoung says, the tiniest proud smile creeping onto her lips. 

“I don’t know if we need a g-“ 

“It’s my responsibility to make sure my employees,” she gestures at Yebin, “are safe. You don’t know what’s out there.” 

Kyungwon sighs, stacking the dishes on the countertop. 

“I suppose if you’re all going, I should come as well.” 

“Yay!” Eunwoo grins, clapping her hands. “This is perfect! I’m going to go call Soonyoung and tell him I’ll be out for the night.”

“Or the year.” Yebin mumbles.

Minkyung feels a renewed strength in her veins, and picks the camera Wonwoo dropped off up. It’s one of the newer, fancier models, with a soft pink pastel color. Minkyung remembers asking for the exact same thing for her birthday once, and she pauses and wonders if that’s why Wonwoo has it. 

Whatever. 

On the back is a sticky note, reading, ‘ _Don’t break this. Here’s my number in case you forgot it, because I know you did._ ”

She smiles at the scrawled number, glad because she had indeed forgotten it, but had been too full of herself to ask for it again. 

He did know her pretty well. 

She lets out a sigh, and stands up.

“Let’s go, guys, the night is young.”

 

“There!” Eunwoo shouts, pointing her flashlight at the fire tower. 

The shadowy structure is illuminated by red light from within. 

Minkyung feels something—perhaps deja vu, or an odd premonition—as she approaches the tower. The last time she was here, she had been so eager to discover whatever secrets the town had to hide, but now, she felt utterly ridden with anxiety as she stared at the red light glowing through the windows. 

“Are we good?” Nayoung asks, gently placing her hand on Minkyung’s shoulder. 

Minkyung shudders in a deep breath.

“Yeah, we’re good.”

“It’ll be fine.” Yebin gives her a smile, and Minkyung admires that the other girl is putting on her brave face—she knows how easily scared she gets. Gently, she lets their hands interlope. 

“I volunteer to go in first.” Kyungwon says. “I’m kind of interested in this.” 

The group walks to the bottom of the tower, the ominous red light reflecting down their faces. Kyungwon bites her lip, and then starts her trek up the stairs, which rattle under her feet as her long legs stomp their way up.

“Let’s get it over with.” Yebin says, tugging on Minkyung’s arm. They start their way up too, followed by Eunwoo, and Nayoung at the back. 

The stairs seem to creak with the rhythm of the summer wind, like the ghosts are whispering to the group to go away.

When they reach the top, Minkyung notices that the once-shattered lightbulb has been replaced with a new one, the wire gently swaying it back and forth, but that the record player is off—no record in it. The books are still all over the floor. 

Kyungwon ducks inside. 

“This is neat!”

“That’s one word for it.” Minkyung remarks, following her in, and kneeling onto the ground. She wants to get a good look at the books—perhaps hoping for some sort of clue. 

The pages are dog-eared, torn up, and worn, many with scribbled marks in pen. She squints, turning on her phone flashlight to get a better look. Next to an old-timey diagram of a solar system, several question marks appear in pen. There’s a newer book, one exploring the possibility of the multiple dimension theory, which is covered in barely readable scrawls and yellow highlighter. Under a large book on witchcraft Minkyung finds something quite interesting—a small journal, plain, with a red canvas cover. 

Intrigued, she sits down at the cot by the window, thumbing through. There’s lots of hastily drawn sketches, some she recognizes as the horrifying red-eyed figures, and towards the back, a large painting that appears to be of some mass of red shapes forming a tear—rather abstract. In messy paint, the word “GLITCH” is written.

Minkyung is about to tell everyone about her findings, when a sudden screech stuns everyone, the noise coming from within the woods, accompanied by distant screams. Quickly, she turns to look out the window, and sees a car hurtling through the trees. The car doesn’t stop, as if some invisible force is dragging it along, and abruptly, it speeds forward and off the cliff edge, holding in the air for a split second before it tumbles down into the canyon. 

Everyone in the tower screams, except for Minkyung—because she knows whose car it is. 

It’s her parents. 

The one they were driving when they died.


	7. let's just go rewind, baby

Minkyung finds her entire body shaking.

She had never been there during the accident, at the time she was peacefully watching cartoons and crying over an argument with Wonwoo, but she knew each visceral detail. 

She wasn’t one to spare herself—she had tracked down the one witness and made them explain to her what had happened. 

When they had explained to her each part, down to the sickening noise the car had made when it hit the bottom of the canyon—“like a million bones snapping in unison”—she had tried to simply note it in her head. She had wanted to “solve” the mystery of her parents death, because it was so unnatural, so gruesome, so unexplainable, but Yebin had stopped her before she got too deep. She remembers the crying on the floor, the sobbing into Yebin’s arms, the angsty calling to Wonwoo just to yell at him, all so incredibly awful. Sheriff Baekho and Ranger Seungcheol had promised her that they would get to the bottom of it, but investigation went nowhere. No one had anything. 

It was odd—this was only two years ago, but it felt much, much longer. Like Minkyung had been living this life without her parents in it forever. 

Now she had to watch it happen again. 

She snaps back to reality with Eunwoo’s panicked scream. 

“Are they ok?” she shouts, running to lean over the balcony. 

“What’s with the sky?” Kyungwon asks, and Minkyung looks up to see that curdling blood red tainting what once had been a beautiful summer night. 

“There’s nothing down there!” Eunwoo shouts. Everyone runs, and looking over the edge, theres nothing down in the canyon—not even any sign of the explosion. 

“What the fuck?” Kyungwon yells, panicking.

Nayoung, meanwhile, stands, relatively calm as she studies the nighttime sky. 

“Minkyung,” she asks, “was that your parent’s car?”

Everyone turns to look at Minkyung. 

“Y-yes.” she coughs out, still stunned at what she had just witnessed.

“But-“ Eunwoo begins.

“So this time travel shit is real!” Kyungwon exclaims. 

Yebin puts her head in her hands. “I want to go home.”

Suddenly, Eunwoo yelps. 

“Who is that?” She points out at the bridge, and everyone turns their heads. Out on the bridge, a singular figure walks. The faint light of the fire tower shows they’re wearing a denim jacket, one Minkyung immediately recognizes as the one she had customized for Yebin’s 16th birthday—distinguishable by the huge fabric heart sewn to the bag. The figure spins on their heel, when Yebin gasps. 

“That’s...”

“You.” Eunwoo finishes. 

There’s a crackle in the sky and a distant boom. Minkyung looks up, to see storm clouds brewing. 

The Yebin, the other Yebin, gazes upwards at the now stormy sky, when—

_SNAP!_

A bolt of lightning strikes down from the sky. It’s insanely close, but more importantly, it hits right in the center of the bridge, a deafening creak swelling through the air as the lightning burns the distant figure and the bridge snaps in half, crumbling to pieces on the way down. 

For a split second, when the other Yebin is caught in the lightning, Minkyung swears she can see the outline of the red, haunting figure before Yebin falls, falls, falls into the canyon. 

Minkyung can’t even hear the other girls screams—there’s a silent pain in watching your best friend die, even if they’re actually standing right next to you. 

“Did I just—“ Yebin begins, voice shaky. “—die?” 

“I’m convinced, I’m convinced.” Kyungwon chants like a protection spell, knuckles white as she grips the tower railing.

“You got anything left?” Eunwoo shouts at the sky—which is clearing away clouds and returning to red. 

Minkyung wanders away from the balcony, brain foggy and not quite there. Watching your best friend and your parents die right in front of you, whether its real or not, it takes something out of you. 

“You ok? You seem more stressed than last time this happened.” Nayoung says, looking concerned. 

“What do you mean last time?”

“Sorry, slip of the tongue. You seem stressed.”

Minkyung stares at her, perplexed. The sky behind Nayoung is fading back into a dark night sky, and the two of them stand in silence. 

“Are we back?” Eunwoo asks, pulling out her phone. “Hey, it’s been three hours. That can’t be right.”

“The bridge!” Kyungwon lets out a panicked yelp. “It’s back!” 

Minkyung massages her temples, and Yebin walks over to her side. 

“You good? I mean—well—none of us are good right now, exactly, but I think it’s over.” She gives Minkyung a trademark weak smile, one that used to make her heart flutter with joy. Now all she can feel is sadness. 

Yebin gently walks her to the cot, where they sit in silence for some brief passing seconds, before Yebin bends over to pick a book off the floor. Outside, Nayoung stands and watches as Kyungwon and Eunwoo argue over whatever they just saw. 

“Huh.” Yebin says, flipping to the back cover. “This is from Diamond City Public Library.” She picks up another book, and looks. “This one too.”

Nayoung leans against the doorway. 

“It’s probably just a coincidence.” she remarks, arms crossed.

Yebin picks more books off the floor. 

“No, they’re all from there.”

“Where else would you get books here?” Nayoung snaps back, oddly sullen.

Minkyung pulls a book off Yebin’s lap, turning to the front corner. She pulls out the due date slip, squinting at who the last person who checked it out was. 

Reading the faded letters, Minkyung gets a crawling feeling because that name belongs to someone she knows—the one person who watched her parents die. 

Zhou Jieqiong. 

 

“I really don’t think you should go. It’s a false lead, if anything.” Nayoung had insisted. When they had informed her they wanted to visit the library, she had become oddly defensive. 

“Just keep searching for leads in the woods.”

“But-“

“We don’t have time to waste on trivial things.”

After Nayoung had stormed out of the room, Minkyung and Yebin had given each other confused looks.

But now, they were standing outside of the Diamond City Public Library, looking up at the weathered stone archway that protected the doors.

“Maybe we shouldn’t have disobeyed Nayoung.” Yebin says, catching her bottom lip between her teeth. 

“It’s fine. She’s not in charge of us. This was  _our_  mystery first.” Minkyung replies.

As they enter the doors, Minkyung remembers the last time she was here—a year and a half ago, to interview Jieqiong about what she had seen from the fire tower that night. 

The library is dark and dusty, dimly lit by vintage lamps that hang from the ceiling. The only people who really spend time in here are Juhyun, the librarian, and Jieqiong, who works full time as a library assistant. 

Yebin looks around with a fond smile. “Remember when we came in here and spent the whole day reading ghost stories, and you spilled coffee on one of the books, then Juhyun got really mad at you and made you mop the floor?” she says.

“What? I don’t remember that.” Minkyung says, trying to search her brain for any semblance of a memory.

“Huh. I definitely remember that happening.”

“I must be tired.” Minkyung says, with a weak smile, even though she knows she’d remember something like that, especially if Yebin was there. 

She looks ahead to the circulation desk—where Jieqiong is usually stationed—and finds it empty.

“You girls looking for something?” 

Minkyung practically jumps out of her skin, and turns around to see Juhyun, the librarian. 

“Um, not really. We were looking for Jieqiong.”

“Jieqiong took the day off today. What do you need from her?”

Yebin looks to the empty circulation desk, and then to Minkyung. 

“We were uh, well, she borrowed something. It might be on her desk, do you mind if we take a look?” Yebin stutters. 

“Oh, sure. Anything for you, Yebin, you’ve always been such a polite patron.” Juhyun gives her a matronly, warm smile. “I’ll be in the back book room if you need me.”

As Juhyun walks away, Minkyung looks at Yebin, lost. 

“Do you come here a lot?”

Yebin shrugs. 

“I like to read.” 

Minkyung feels her heart oddly crushed—she prides herself in knowing everything about her best friend, and here she was, completely clueless. 

“Come on, lets go snoop.” Yebin insists, waving over Minkyung to the desk.

It’s absolutely cluttered—the computer is covered in stickers and post-it notes, and there are books stacked everywhere. Several boxes of tissues are stacked all around, and pens and pencils are messily jammed into a couple novelty mugs. 

Yebin opens up the computer. 

“She doesn’t password protect it. Of course.” 

The screen lights up, revealing a desktop with about forty different windows open. As Yebin begins clicking through them, Minkyung opens up a mysterious red binder buried under several manila file folders. 

The first page is a plastic sheet protector, with only one thing in it, a singular polaroid picture. It’s a selfie, taken by Jieqiong. At her side are two familiar faces. Nayoung on her left, and Wonwoo on her right. Minkyung feels a sense of confusion. Nayoung and Jieqiong never interacted in high school, and Wonwoo was mostly a loner, so why were they together? 

She flips the page. There’s a printout of a photo of the fire tower, and then... a picture of her parent’s car, probably stolen from her father’s Facebook page, as well as separate pictures of her mother and father. 

She looks up when she hears a gasp from Yebin. 

“This girl was stalking us! Look!” 

Several open photos on the computer display crisp images. Minkyung and Yebin walking to the store together, the two of them getting into her car. Yebin sitting and eating dinner with her mother, Minkyung and Kyungwon drinking beer on the apartment steps. 

And then one that brings Minkyung immense guilt, her and Wonwoo sitting at the back patio of the cafe, arguing.

Yebin turns around. 

“Minky, when was this?” she asks, obvious worry on her face. 

“It’s nothing.” her face feels hot, hot with shame. “It was just about the camera.” She flips through the binder, desperate to find something to change the subject. “There’s a diary entry in here.” she lets out, trying not to stutter.

Yebin looks at her, partially with worry, but she complies with the topic change anyway. Minkyung appreciates that about her—she’s talented at reading other’s emotions. 

“Um...” Minkyung squints to read Jieqiong’s messy handwriting. “ _Run 22. When I woke up, I felt even more sick. I’m coughing up blood now. I’m afraid my state is so fragile that if I become the next sacrifice, I’ll die for real this time. It is the 18th day of this run. I have a feeling it will be another long one. I called Wonwoo and Nayoung to make sure they could still remember—they do. It’s only getting stronger for them, but I feel like I’m fading. I can’t remember the first time at all now, only faint memories. I’m scared. I can tell it’s tearing more and more with each reset. Stuff has started leaking into each other_.” 

“What does that even mean?” Yebin asks, breathing anxious. “What does she mean by a ‘run’ and what do Nayoung and Wonwoo have to do with any of this?” 

“I don’t—“ Minkyung begins, but she’s interrupted by a noise outside, like somebody is approaching. 

“I told them not to come.” the voice from outside says, and the two of them panic, recognizing it as Nayoung’s. 

“Hide!” Yebin hisses, and the two of them look back and forth as the huge door creaks open, Minkyung slamming shut the binder. They spot a table in the corner with a long tablecloth, and with a moment of last-minute speed, they both dive under it. 

They both can barely see, but in the tiny gap between the fabric and the floor, Minkyung can see two people—Nayoung and Jieqiong. 

“Nayoung, there’s no need to keep them away from me. We need to work together.”

“I don’t want to increase your chance of being chosen as the next one to go.”

Minkyung hears a loud cough, most likely from Jieqiong. 

“See?” Nayoung insists. “You’re not well. We can figure it out on our own.” 

“With the way things are looking right now, we can’t stop it. I’m so close to solving this, just let me help!”

“No! I would rather take myself and start from square one again than risk losing you.”

“At least tell them the truth!”

“We tried that before. It doesn’t work out.” 

There’s a loud sigh, and Minkyung follows their feet with her eyes as they walk to the circulation desk.

“Somebody’s been messing with my stuff!” Jieqiong exclaims. 

“What?” 

“Everything’s been moved around!”

In the dark under the table, Minkyung and Yebin exchange a nervous glance. 

“Jieqiong, sweetie, it’s your day off!” Juhyun’s voice shouts, presumably walking back into the main area of the library. 

“I know, Juhyun, I just came here to grab something.”

“Do you know if those girls got what they were looking for?”

“What girls?” 

Minkyung swallows, sweat crawling down her neck. 

“There were some girls here a couple minutes ago. They said you borrowed something and they wanted to look in your desk.”

“Did you know them?” Nayoung’s voice asks, obviously ridged with tension. 

“Oh, yes. That one pretty dark haired girl and Yebin, you know, the one who’s always in here.”

The pair under the table only hear silence. 

“Ok, thank you, Juhyun.” Jieiqiong finally says.

“You’re welcome!” the older woman hums, footsteps carrying her away. 

Minkyung and Yebin stay quiet and tense, fists clenched.

“Just take your binder and go, we can talk about all this later.” Nayoung whispers. 

There’s no audible conformation from Jieqiong, but their feet moving away from the desk and in the direction of the door is good enough. 

Minkyung breathes a sigh of relief as they exit, and turns to Yebin. 

“I think we need to call a meeting.”

 

“So Nayoung’s been going behind our back!?” Eunwoo exclaims, slamming her empty soda can down on the floor.

“I knew she was being suspicious.” scoffs Kyungwon. 

“I mean, we shouldn’t jump to conclusions, but something was up.” Yebin remarks, nervously fiddling with her ponytail. 

“It’s just odd. The way they talked about all of this—it’s like they’ve been researching this for years and years.” Minkyung says, staring at her hands. “I don’t get what it all means.”

“I don’t think we’ve got what anything means since this all started.” laughs Yebin.

Minkyung’s phone vibrates in her back pocket, and she pulls it out to check it. 

It’s a text from Nayoung.

_Meet me at the fire tower in an hour. We should talk. Just the two of us._

Minkyung knows it’s a bad idea, but some urge makes her want to trust Nayoung, just this once. 

“Guys, I gotta go. Work thing.” she says, standing up. 

Yebin gives her a confused look, but says nothing. 

 

The forest is even more terrifying alone. As Minkyung moves through the trees, she has an unnatural sense of loneliness—if only Yebin was here. But she had to do this alone. 

Out at the edge of the canyon, a tall figure stands, back to Minkyung. Nervously, Minkyung approaches, fingers fiddling with her tube of cherry chapstick as she hears her feet crunch on the dry grass. 

"Nayoung!" She calls out, voice almost stuck in her throat. 

The figure turns around.

"You're here."

"Well, you did ask me to come." 

They both look at each other, close enough to make real sure contact now.

"Thank you for coming alone. I appreciate it." 

"Uh, yeah. Of course."

Minkyung notices how close Nayoung is to the cliffs edge, and feels herself get nervous.

“I need to tell you something. The truth, I guess. I’ve been lying to all of you.” Nayoung looks down at her feet. “Maybe you won’t believe me, it’s fine, because you’re going to forget it all in a few minutes anyway.”

“Do you really think I’d not believe you after all the shit we’ve seen?”

Nayoung laughs, but it’s weak, the kind of laugh of someone giving up. 

“Listen... this town is not normal. You know that, of course. But it’s more than that.” She looks up at the sky—which still stays dim and normal. “There’s something wrong here. A glitch. A glitch in time, let’s say. A dimensional rip. It’s been happening ever since your parents died—we’ve been repeating and repeating the last two years.” 

“What? I—“

“Let me speak. The thing is, we only go back in time when someone dies. But we can’t just avoid it—this glitch, it takes sacrifices when it needs them. And it’s—“ The sky suddenly rumbles, and panicked, Nayoung looks up at the sky again, Minkyung following, and it’s becoming dense with swirling storm clouds. “Fuck. There’s no time. Listen, it’s coming, the glitch is coming, and there’s no time. I can’t let it take Jieqiong this time, it’s—fuck.” Nayoung panics, her usual calm demeanor almost completely gone. She reaches into her coat pocket, and pulls out a crumpled piece of paper. “This is all I have. A message. Don’t get rid of it.” She reaches forward, prying open Minkyung’s mouth before the other girl can say anything, stuffing the piece of paper inside. “Goodbye, Minkyung. See you soon.”

And with that, Nayoung jumps, back first, off the cliff edge, and into the canyon.


	8. falling

Minkyung wakes up on a tear stained pillow, drool dripping down her chin. Then she coughs, and in complete surprise, a piece of crumpled paper falls out of her mouth and into her hand. 

She's still disoriented, distressed, but when she looks around her empty living room, she remembers. Her parents. Her parents—are dead. 

Her phone blinks. 

A text, from Yebin.

_u OK?????_

No, of course not.

Tears start to well up in her eyes again.

She checks the time, still ignoring the soggy piece of paper in her hand. 

_July 12th, 2016. 3 pm._

Was it actually that late? Had she slept that long? 

She looks at the ground to see a bag of Cheetos and a sticky note on them that reads “ _Sorry about everything. Here if you need it. — Wonwoo_.”

That fucking asshole. 

She picks up the Cheeto bag, and throws it against the wall as tears come harder and faster. 

Nothing can comfort her right now, not Yebin, not Wonwoo’s misguided attempts at comfort, not anything. Fuck them all. 

Finally, she remembers the paper in her hand. Carefully, she smooths it out, a little grossed out by the saliva on it. The red ink is slightly bleeding, but with some squinting she finally reads “ _Go to the mirror. Take a picture with your film camera_.” 

It’s not handwriting that she recognizes, but when she looks at the floor, she notices her film camera where the bag of Cheetos had been. 

Maybe it’s just a primal urge, or some desire to distract her from the grief, but she picks the camera up, inspecting the lens with blurry eyes. 

She stands up, soles of her feet cold on the floor. Sun filters through the window, and it almost hurts Minkyung with its saturated brightness. 

Camera in hand, she wanders in the direction of the bathroom, breath short and fast to keep up with her tears.

Strangely, she doesn't feel as sad as she should. Perhaps it's just not fully sunken in to her psyche yet—that must be it. It's like she's detached from a sense of reality, like this is a dream or an experience already lived through. But she still cries—mourning wracking her entire body. 

She opens the door and flicks on the light, seeing her image in the mirror. Messy, red ink staining her cheek, hair tangled, cheeks covered with tears, eyes puffy and lips dry. Not a moment she wanted to preserve, really. 

She holds the camera up to the mirror, pressing the tiny button. 

The camera flashes, and Minkyung suddenly hears a loud noise. 

Jazz music, suddenly blasting at full volume. The fear almost makes her drop her camera.

It sounds like it’s coming from her parents record player, which is out in the living room.

She turns around to leave the bathroom, when suddenly, the door closes, a slam so forceful it pushes a tiny breeze back onto Minkyung. 

The jazz becomes faint, distant, and fear, riding inside her, crawls all over her body as she turns around. 

The mirror is flickering, like her TV does as it warms up, and suddenly an outline, an outline of a  _person_ , appears. It appears to be a female, with eyes that glow red like beacons. 

Minkyung lets out a scream, but it seems muffled by the atmosphere of the room.

The lights switch off.

“M̶̰͇̔͗I̶̮̖̍Ņ̴̿͆K̷̼̆Y̵̼͂͝U̵̦͆͆͜N̷͚̺͠G̸̜̈́̑ͅ”

A voice, horrifying and garbled as if its been slowed down and sped up several times, calls out from the mirror. A strong static noise almost entirely masks, it buzzing all around Minkyung.”

“M I N K Y U N G” 

The figure in the mirror leans forward, putting a hand against the glass. Some of it’s finite details are more visible—hair, face shape, and it looks strangely familiar. 

“What do you want?” Minkyung shouts, hands shaking as she backs against the door, rattling the doorknob.

“Minkyung, it’s me!” the voice shouts, and it’s now recognizable—because it’s Minkyung’s own voice. She looks at the mirror and sees—herself. Or some version of herself, still barely glitching red, an odd staticky fuzz surrounding her. 

Minkyung shakes and shakes, unsure of what to do.

"Go away!" She stutters out, still rattling the doorknob. 

"Minkyung, you have to listen to me." The  _other_  her yells over the static, palms pressed flat against the glass. "I'm here to tell you that you need to go talk to Jieqiong. I saw something, something in my camera—she's going to try and stop it all personally, but she can't, she's too weak. It's the 18th run right now, I think this message will reach you by the 23rd. I told Nayoung to deliver this, but she doesn't know what it is—I don't want her to hurt herself too. Listen. Don't let go of your camera. It's your most powerful weapon. And let Wonwoo go to the funeral. He n̷e̷e̷d̵s̴ ḯ̷̡̮͎̃͆t̸̬̝̙̋͜. Ḟ̵̛͈ủ̷͕͛͠c̸͓̦̉̊k̶̟̥̿, Ì̸̬̺'̵̻̰̦̉͜m̶̱͓̿̆͜ ̷͉̣͑͗f̵͔̝̩̆a̵͉̜͌d̶̼͎͕͕̋i̶̬͋͘͜ͅń̵̩̥̦̣̓́g̴̢͊͜. G̶̬͆̚o̸̻̺͔̗͌͝ò̵̥̠͋͋ͅd̸̢̩̽̾͛̆b̴̠͚͓̩̑͘̕͠ỳ̵̗̯͙ë̸̱̙̞̩̌,̷̢̠́́̽ ̶͚̫̋͒̃M̷͉͗i̶̡̝̜͊́̄n̷͈̄͛k̴̢̪̻͗͘͝y̷̤̣͑͠ṷ̷̙̣̮̔n̷͈̠͛͠g̶̤̪̭̘̀.̷̯̳͝ Ȃ̶̢̬͔͓̹̝͖̙̠̭̹̮ ņ̴̡͙̦̜͓̺̙͎̩͕̈́̑͐̈́͗̑̕͝ d̵̡̻͖̗͖̞͐͑̀̓̈́͐̋ ̶̢̰̙̞͉̠̟̰̙̬̒̉̀͑̔̈̎͋̕͝g̸̨̨͇̮̥͙̲͍̲̰̼̊̈́̅͂͑ o̷̖̭̺͑͒̎̈́̿̈͘ ȍ̴̧̭̏̏̆̑̎ d̴̜̰͂̌̕͘ ̸̨̣͔̻͕̯͑̈́̓̒͛͑̃̿̚̚̕͜ĺ̷̬̺͙̜̫̘̼́̽͌̚͜ ū̸̠̟̟͔̥́̎͐̏̀͘ͅ c̷̡̥̘͇̮̩̺̜̦̼̭̺̓͑̏͝ k̸̛̲̫͎̭̩̯͇̖͙̘̣̓̽͐͗͌̾͋̅̕̚.̸͉̲̫̠̺͝" 

Minkyung is left standing there, utterly stunned as the figure in the mirror fades away, the lights snapping back on. She feels the door behind her open, and hears the doorbell ring, but she can't bring herself to move. Then she starts to cry.

 

Nayoung is falling. She's falling and falling, watching the tiny figure of Minkyung get further and further away. Then she hits the ground. 

It's not that pain that hurts. The pain of being the sacrifice, Nayoung has learned, comes from when everything resets.

It's like your entire body is being ripped into shreds, each individual muscle fiber strained to it's capacity. 

So she screams as she lies suspended in midair, inches above the ground, the sky above flashing red. 

And suddenly, she's lying on the forest floor, nose bleeding.

It's been a while since she's been here, two years in fact.

But she's been here many a time.

It's funny—she's never had to relive the moment of tripping over the tree root and falling to the ground, only the humiliation of it afterward. 

It must've been what, the noise of the crash? Who even knows. It's been so long.

Perhaps this is the closest one gets to immortality. Forced to live the same two demonic years of your youth again and again. At this point, Nayoung has lived 60-something years in this town. And yet, she still has the body of some naive 20 year old. It's a curse, if anything. Pure purgatory. 

She dusts off her knees, muscles still aching. Where was Wonwoo normally at this point?

She wipes some of the blood off her chin, and with chattering legs, stands up, one hand against a nearby tree for support.

"Wonwoo?" She calls out, voice unsurprisingly weak. 

She takes a stumbling step forward, watching carefully for roots and other possible obstructions. 

"Nayoung?" A voice calls out in response. 

She moves more briskly through the trees to see Wonwoo standing there, holding a still-life cigarette. 

"Oh my God." He says, looking up and down at her. "You did not offer yourself up this time."

"I'm fine." She coughs. "It had to be done."

"No it didn't! It would've easily taken a sacrifice on it's own." 

"That could've been Jieqiong." 

He rolls his eyes.

"You're ridiculously stupid." He flicks his cigarette to the ground, and stomps on it.

"I do what I have to do." She coughs into her hand. 

"Here, need a tissue?" He holds out a package. 

Nayoung weakly nods, wiping her nose with it and sighing. 

"Let's go to Jieqiong. You do know she's gonna be hella mad." Wonwoo says.

"I'll live. How was the reset for you?"

"Not terrible. Just woke up here."

"I delivered the note." 

"Good. Still have any idea what it means?"

"No. But I made a promise."

They walk in silence, and then Nayoung coughs into her hand. 

It hurts when she does, and then she looks and sees blood scattered on her palm.

"Everything OK?" Wonwoo asks, concerned.

Nayoung gives him a fake smile of reassurance.

"I'm great."

 

Yebin wakes up remembering. 

She can remember.

That's why when she opens her phone to see the date, she feels completely confused.

It can't be 2016. It cannot. 

Her room looks different—still her school things are out, there are college pamphlets scattered around, some of her old posters are still on the wall. 

Lost, she crawls out of bed, and begins a slow walk down the stairs. She hears distant sobs from the kitchen, and finds her stomach curdling. 

She has lived through this before. 

She opens the door to the kitchen, hand trembling, bile in her throat. 

There's her mom at the kitchen table, sobbing into her hands. 

She looks up, utterly devastated, making eye contact with Yebin. 

"Yebin... Something horrible happened last night."

"Minkyung's parents..." Yebin finds herself saying.

"How did you..." Her mother begins. "Bur yes, there was a terrible terrible accident and they..." Her body begins to shake, returning to tears, and Yebin trembles along with her mother. 

It's not entirely because of sadness. In fact, it's mostly because of fear. 

Why is she here? Why is she back here? Does Minkyung remember too? 

"I need to go sit outside." She chokes out, barely holding back tears.

Her mother just nods, pressing her head against the table. 

Yebin wanders through the house. There's the vase in the living room that the cat broke, fully formed again. There's the same, old, withered cat that would get put down at the end of Yebin's senior year. Her coat she'd thought she'd lost at school. 

She opens the door. 

Saplings in the yard Yebin only knew as trees. Her bike, still not yet beaten up from a bad ghost hunting accident. Yebin looks down at her arms and sees no scars from said accident. 

Had everything been a horrible dream? Could Minkyung remember too? Her breath quickens and morphs into sobs. Is she crazy?

Something really was wrong here. 

Yebin bites her lip.

She looks at her phone—it's past 3pm. She must've really slept in. 

There's one person she desperately needs to see right now, and if she's in the past, they live in the house across the street. Not yet evicted for being unable to pay rent due to lack of parents, not yet Kyungwon's roommate. 

She walks down the front walkway, and across the empty street, up the groomed pathway to the front porch.

Then she rings Kim Minkyung's doorbell. 

 

 

 


	9. major paranoia

_Ring._

_Ring._

_Ring._

Yebin repeatedly presses the doorbell, anxiously awaiting Minkyung to answer. 

Finally, the noise of the latch clicks on the other side of the door, and it swings open to reveal Minkyung. 

She looks horrible. Yes, Yebin loves her best friend more than anything in the world, but Minkyung looks horrible. 

Hair a tangled mess, skin pale like she’s been hugged by a ghost, eyes bloodshot from tears, mucus slightly coming out of her sniffling nose.

“Oh my god, Minkyung.” Yebin says. “I’m so sorry.” 

She looks down, and notices a film camera in her best friend’s hand. She doesn’t ask questions, but she wonders.

Minkyung falls forward, head landing on Yebin’s shoulders and arms wrapping around her waist. 

They stand there, for a few blissful moments, out there on the front porch, an afternoon breeze drifting both of their hair to the left as Minkyung sobs and sobs into Yebin’s shoulder. 

“Minky... do you remember?” she says, rubbing circles into the taller girls back. “Do you remember anything?”

“What?” Minkyung murmurs through cries. 

Perhaps this isn’t the right time.

“Never mind. Hey, let's go inside."

She leads the girl back in to the house, closing the door and sitting her down on the couch. 

"Um... Do you want me to make you something? You really should eat." 

Minkyung doesn’t say anything. Her tears seem to have stopped, and now she stares blankly ahead, rocking back and forth with her fingers balled into the fabric of the couch. 

"I'm sorry, I'm so bad at this." Yebin says, her brain thinking back to the last time this happened. The time she can remember—standing in Minkyung's kitchen while Minkyung cried and sobbed and weeped until there were no tears left, and then they had eaten cereal together in silence. 

"Can you... make those cookies you make sometimes? With the M&Ms in them?" Minkyung says quietly, wrapping her arms around her folded legs.

"O-of course!" Yebin gasps. "I'll get right on it." 

Minkyung gives her a smile.

"There's M&M's in the pantry above the sink."

"Thank you." 

It doesn't feel right may leaving Minkyung there, but she does it anyway.

In the quiet kitchen, Yebin thinks. How is she back here? Did she travel or did she imagine everything? The ghosts and the red skies and the lightning? 

She swings open the fridge and takes out two sticks of butter. 

There's something about all the food in the fridge, that Tabasco sauce Minkyung's father used to love, Minkyung's mother's diet cherry-flavored yogurt, that brings Yebin immense sadness. It's too strange to see this all again. 

Or even the fact that Minkyung is living in a house, that her grades are pinned to the fridge, that there's all these signs of life in a house now empty with a swinging "For Sale" sign in the yard. Well—not now. But what is now?

She pulls out the eggs too, the flour, the sugar, the baking soda, the bowl. 

Perhaps this is a vivid dream, like one of her strange dimensional trips. 

But it doesn't seem like it. Everything feels so... Well, not normal, but like life before everything happened. 

Even the accident was just a piece of her and Yebin's history. A horrible piece, but still just something to mark on the timberline of their lives. Now she's not even sure what reality really is anymore. 

Dry ingredients first.

Then turn on the mixer.

It whirrs, filling up the quiet of the house. 

Now Yebin wants to cry, too. 

Not even for Minkyung's parents, because well—their death is something she's already lived through. Now she's crying for Minkyung, because there has to be a terrible pain in living through this again.

Cookie sheet.

Grease the pan.

Breathe. 

Tears come a little faster, and Yebin can't quite see through the watery shield they put over her eyes, so when she reaches for a spatula, her hand knocks hard into the side of one of the cabinets, and she suddenly realizes she's started bleeding.

Hurriedly, she dashes to the nearest bathroom, grabbing toilet paper off the ring to wipe her eyes. She's about to open the medicine cabinet, when she notices something odd. A red handprint on the mirror, but not on the physical surface of it, rather, it's like somehow, someone was trapped inside the glass and had been pressing against it, trying to get out. 

She opens the medical cabinet, getting that familiar tingle down her spine as she reaches for a band-aid. 

At the edge of the sink, she sees something lying there. 

A tube of cherry chapstick. 

She picks it up, and walks slowly to her living room. 

"I think you need this right now." She says, giving her best attempt at a smile as she holds it out to Minkyung.

“Are my lips chapped?” Minkyung looks up at her, confused. 

Yebin suddenly remembers—the chapstick habit had come around post-accident. 

“I don’t know, just sometimes, having something to do when you’re angry at the world is nice.” She wraps the band-aid around her hand. “Cherry’s your favorite flavor, right?”

"It is. Thanks, weirdo." Minkyung cracks a smile, a more genuine one this time, and uncaps the chapstick. "And thanks for... being here. It means a lot to me." 

Head swirling with deja-vu, Yebin smiles back.

"Anything for you."

 

Groundhog day. That's what this is—some sort of quirky movie plot she's living in.

She goes to her job, and remembers she's only been working there for a couple of months at this point in time. Siyeon doesn't even work here yet. It's just her and Nayoung, awkwardly standing there, Yebin thinking about every strange thing and conversation she's had with Nayoung since everything started. 

One day, while restocking the peanuts in the bulk foods aisle, she thinks about Jieqiong's notes from the library, the way that Nayoung and her had talked.

The way they had discussed it like they'd lived through it all before. 

Then it hits her. What if—what if Nayoung can remember it too? 

Yebin bites her tongue, but she casts away the thought like it's a balled up scrap of paper. 

 

She starts to get into the rhythm of things. Sure, she can't sleep out of the fear that she'll wake up and have to start again, but there's something nice about having a fresh start, a chance to throw away all the mistakes. 

But the memories haunt her. And the dreams—the dreams remind her. Terrifying red-eye figures, Minkyung screaming for help, the bridge snapping in half, lightning bursting through the sky. 

Yebin wants to curl up into a ball. There's no one to talk about this with, it's forever just her, alone and afraid, quite possibly going entirely insane. 

Would Minkyung understand? 

Perhaps not.

But Yebin still finds herself stumbling across the street at 3am anyway. 

Surprisingly, Minkyung is awake. 

She answers the door with a blanket hung on her shoulders, TV flickering in the background of her darkened living room.

"What are you doing here, dummy?"

"I don't know. What are you doing awake?" 

"Funeral plans."

"Oh." Yebin looks at the table in front of the couch, seeing scattered invitations, paperwork, and photographs littered everywhere.

"Here, come in. What's the matter?"

"Why are you trying to comfort me? I should comfort you."

"I'm fine. It's sort of... so terrible that I don't feel anything at all. Did you know they're taking this house away from me because I can't pay rent with my idiotic convience store job?"

 _Yes_ , Yebin thinks, because it's already happened.

"No! They can't do that to you!" she says instead, as the two sit down on the couch.

The digital clock on top of the TV beeps. 

"Listen, Yeb, let me know what  _you're_  going through. I'd much rather deal with someone else's problems than my own."

Yebin swallows her nerves. 

"You're not going to believe me."

Minkyung cocks her head and chuckles. 

"You're my best friend. I'll believe anything you say."

Yebin leans back against the couch and pulls a pillow to her chest, sighing.

"Have you ever thought that you're going insane?" 

Minkyung reaches for the TV remote and turns down the volume.

"A couple times, recently, yeah."

"I think that's happening to me. It's either that or something is very, very wrong with this town."

"There's always something wrong with this town."

"No, not that, Minky. I think I... I time traveled."

"What?" 

"When I woke up the day your parents died, it wasn't like waking up from the day before. It was like—how do I put this—like I had lived an entire two years already and I had been sent back to the start.”

“Like a dream?”

“No. Dreams can feel real when you’re in them, but when you wake up, you realize they're fake, y'know? This one, it was like I had just been there, living my life, and then I was sent back. I'd already been through everything, Minky. Your parents death, the funeral, graduation, everything."

Minkyung stars at her, wide eyed. 

"What was it all like?" 

"Well, um, in that reality, we were ghost hunting, and we found something... strange. We were being hunted by these weird creatures with red eyes, and experiencing visions and all sorts of scary stuff. That's partially why I feel like I'm going nuts. It's all so vivid in my head, and yet, or shouldn't be real."

"Yeb..." Minkyung reaches forward and takes Yebin's hand. "I believe you. Because when I woke up that afternoon, of that day my parents had died, I experienced this really strange thing in the bathroom, and I—"

Before she can finish, Yebin whips her head around because she hears a noise. A long, ugly scratch. Panic incites in her bones, hairs on her neck standing up. 

"Yebin, what's going o—AH!" 

They're both falling, landing with a thump on the floor, hands still clenched together. 

At first Yebin doesn't understand how they managed to fall from their comfortable position on the couch, but when she looks up—she understands. 

The couch is on the ceiling. So is the TV, the table, every piece of Minkyung's living room remains precariously stuck to the floor, dangling above threateningly. Yebin looks next to her to see the ceiling lamp, flickering  _red_. 

"Yebin?" Minkyung asks, nervously tightening her hand in her friends. 

Slowly, Yebin stands up, knees chattering and ankles shaking. 

"OK, I'm not the only one seeing the whole room is upside down right?" she asks Minkyung.

"Nope. I am definitley seeing that too." Minkyung says, following suit by also standing. Everything above them seems perfectly in place—like only they were affected by a new sense of gravity. 

Still holding hands, they begin to move in the direction of the next room. At the doorframe, Yebin pauses to let go of Minkyung for a second. 

"I'm gonna see if it's safe." she says, lifting herself over the top of the doorframe, feet landing with a thud on the kitchen ceiling. 

Still the same. 

"Can I come through?" Minkyung asks. Yebin nods, holding out her hands. 

There's an odd calmness in this entire experience—an unexplainable synchronicity in it all, the way the two interact with each other. They've always been able to communicate with each other on a level far beyond just talking, and right now, Yebin can feel it. The connection between her and Minkyung. 

“I feel strangely relaxed right now.” Minkyung says, looking up at her kitchen floor—all the dishes stacked around, somehow perfectly the same even as they hang above, everything just as it had been left—just upside down. 

Yebin gives Minkyung her best hopeful grin. 

“If you think about this, it’s kind of cool.”

She takes a step forward, and feels confused when her foot doesn’t hit the ground. Behind her, she feels her back foot is no longer pressed against the ceiling, and when she turns to Minkyung, she notices the girl is floating a few centimeters in the air. 

"Minkyung?” she asks, looking around them. From the ceiling things start to move too, kitchen mixers and plates and bags of flour, all gently floating into the air. 

The two look around, stunned, as every loose piece of the kitchen begins to move and float, caught in a soft swirling rhythm. 

Around the pair, hands still clasped, floats mugs and dishes and silverware, in a sort of paradoxical harmonized cacophony. Yebin feels like she’s swimming without having to worry about air—it’s odd, it’s peaceful, it’s disturbing. 

She’s low enough now, somewhere in the middle between the floor and the ceiling, that she can see into the living room, and she notices everything there is floating too when she sees the mirror on the far wall.

She looks into the glass, squinting from far away seeing her and Minkyung’s silhouettes in front of the window, but wait, is that someone outside—

A loud scratch interrupts her thoughts and whatever peace was once there, and Yebin sees for a flash a red figure watching behind them from the window in the reflection of the mirror, but when she turns, theres a bang so loud her ears ring for a while after. 

Then they fall, hard against the ground, along with everything else, dodging as ceramic plates and wine glasses smash hard against the kitchen tile, their entire world reversed once again. 

All that’s left is a shocking silence and the ringing in Yebin’s ears. 

Minkyung looks up at her. 

“I remember...” she pauses. “I remember something.”

 


End file.
